United States: It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's... An eVTOL Air Taxi!

Last week, the House Committee on Science, Space, &
Technology engaged in a closer examination of one of the most
exciting concepts for our cities of the future–Urban Air
Mobility (UAM). This first-of-its-kind congressional hearing
focused on the types of vehicles that will unlock access to the
third dimension of transportation.

Witnesses from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA), Uber Elevate, Bell, Terrafugia and the Georgia Institute of
Technology all spoke about how innovations in electric vertical
takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles, distributed electric
propulsion, autonomy and artificial intelligence are converging to
create this new UAM opportunity. They spoke of the need to
transform management of the airspace and how projects like
NASA's Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management are
foundational for those essential changes. They spoke about advances
in automation and self-piloted technologies.

Why is UAM important? As we learned during the Uber Elevate
conference this year, growth in cities has been outpacing our
infrastructure. Sufficient transportation into cities does not
exist, and building new roads and adding lanes is difficult and
expensive. We live in a world that is dominated by cars, and we
need to move more people through a fixed and finite amount of
space. The United States has 10 of the 25 most congested cities in
the world. Los Angeles is the most gridlocked, with the average
person spending 2.5 weeks each year sitting in traffic. The trend
to live in cities means that this situation will get worse.
Cracking the code that will enable UAM is necessary. We need fast,
safe, and efficient movement of people to urban centers that is
also environmentally friendly.

The witnesses all recognized and underscored that realizing the
vision for UAM will require contributions from many quarters, not
just the aviation sector. For UAM to become a reality, it will
require contributions from real estate developers who must
construct or retrofit current infrastructure to create skyports or
vertiports for takeoff and landing of eVTOL in urban centers. It
also will require advances in mass manufacturing of the number of
airframes needed to support expectations for UAM–unlike cars,
this has never been done before for aircraft. Electric charging of
the distributed propulsion systems in eVTOL vehicles also will be
needed for quick recharging of the craft through readily available
energy sources. In addition, a safe and scalable communications
infrastructure will be necessary to support this on-demand service
for UAM, and even UAS operations. It will be essential to leverage
cloud-based service technologies to meet the needs of a real- time,
on-demand network for airborne vehicles on a massive scale.
Operating efficiently and at scale, with precision, will be
crucial.

Early engagement across federal, state and local governments to
support buildout of UAM ecosystems will be absolutely critical,
since all have a role to play. Regulations that allow access to the
airspace and authorize UAM flight, zoning issues and insurance
requirements are just some of the challenges that must be addressed
in short order, given the ambitious timelines that are under
consideration by the major players in the field. Public acceptance
of this new mode of transportation also is an issue.

A major hurdle to overcome will be the requisite Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) certifications needed to not only
fly, but also carry passengers in these types of eVTOL aircraft.
There are many questions surrounding the ability to either apply
current FAA regulations to expedite the certification process, or
develop an entirely new framework. The major eVTOL players also
envision different approaches to the question of autonomous vs.
piloted operations.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.

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President Donald Trump, with bipartisan support, signed into law the Federal Maritime Commission Authorization Act of 2017 (the Act) on Dec. 4, 2018, as part of the Frank LoBiondo Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2018 (S. 140).

Federal autonomous vehicle legislation, previously stalled in the Senate, is revving its engine after Republican senators struck a deal with the American Association for Justice (AAJ) in an effort to secure outstanding Democratic votes.

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